Sunday, 29 April 2018

What is Bill 19 - The Planning Amendment Act (Efficiency in Planning)?

WHAT WILL BILL 19 MEAN

FOR RURAL MANITOBA?

Photo - Mercy for Animals, Canada.

It
is a series of changes to allow two hog processing corporations Maple Leaf and
HyLife Foods, to increase their shareholder profits at the expense of rural
homeowners, taxpayers, family farms, degraded air, environment, water quality
and pig welfare.

Why Bill 19?

The Manitoba Department of Agriculture advised the
Pallister cabinet in a 2017 internal brief that 285 more new barns were needed
to “ensure an adequate supply of hogs to the Maple Leaf and HyLife Food
slaughter facilities.” And, that “public conflict,” “public pressure” and the
locally controlled conditional use approval process are in the way of “growth
of the industry.”

How
will Bill 19 help the hog industry expand?

Bill
19 will silence the public. It will allow municipal leaders to get rid of
conditional use hearings and Provincial Technical Reviews for factory hog
barns. If local politicians take this route, the Province will have the only
and final say on where hog factories can be built. The Government of Manitoba
is and has been both a promoter and regulator of the hog industry. Bill 19 is the latest move to promote
and de-regulate hog industry expansion.

Why is Provincial control a problem?

If conditional use disappears, local councils and
rural people will not have any say in how factory hog operations perform.
Municipalities will have no means of monitoring, enforcing conditions, and
protecting local people and the environment from hog operations.

Won’t the hog industry still have to follow some
rules?

Yes, once municipal control is surrendered, the
industry will still have to follow a few rules to get a manure storage permit
and a water rights license. But, these processes are secret and protected by
the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act. Applications and approvals for
these permits and licenses are “private business information.” The public and
municipal officials will have no idea what the province is doing.

What about Manure Management?

The over-application of phosphorus, even with
provincially required manure management plans, will continue. Current rules
allow phosphorus loading on spread fields up to 826lbs/acre of soil test P2O5.
The average annual crop removal rate of P2O5 by Manitoba
crops is reported to be 20.47lbs/acre. The provincial government has stated
that water is harmed when soil test P2O5is
276lbs/acre. 285 more factory farms and millions more
finished hogs will exacerbate the long-term water quality problems we
experience in surface waterbodies. Millions of tax dollars have already been
spent on Lake Winnipeg’s nutrient problem.

What is the Province’s track record?

During the last round of hog industry expansion,
provincial approvals to build cheap, seeping manure storages were issued in
areas with high water tables (e.g. the Interlake), flood plains, marshes, and
groundwater sensitive areas, and where provincial officials knew there were not
enough acres to sustainably spread manure.Recently, Provincial officials at the RM of Oakview’s
conditional use hearing advocated on behalf of the hog barn applicant for the
council’s approval of another cheap, seepage prone, outdated type of earthen
manure storage. They would have allowed it to be built illegally on a surface
water drainage area. In part, because Oakview rejected the application, the
Province changed the rules making such sites legal. Manitoba Agriculture has
admitted that since 2012, taxpayers have spent over $19 million to fix problems
with these outdated storages.

Can Municipalities keep the conditional use process
and all the protections contained in the Planning Act?

Yes. Bill 19 requires all municipalities to make a
decision within a year of it becoming law. A simple resolution to keep
conditional use is all that is required.

What if a municipality wants to remove conditional
use and open its arms to hog factories that they can’t control?

Development Plan by-laws and Zoning by-laws must be
changed. Public hearings will have to be held on both by-laws. The mechanism
for changing Development Plans will remain the same, but Bill 19 makes it
harder for people to object to zoning by-law changes. The Bill requires 25
people, instead of one person, to register formal objections at both 1st
and 2nd reading of any zoning by-law, proposing the removal of
conditional use for 300+ animal unit livestock operations, to get a Municipal
Board hearing. However, only Canadian citizens, eligible for election to
Council, can have a say. Any person such as a permanent resident or recent
immigrant who has invested in a home, farm, and their community will be denied
a voice.A place for the
expression of Indigenous people’s concerns have not been considered in Bill 19.

But, isn’t Hog factory production profitable and its
expansion good for Manitoba?

Consider this: the Manitoba Pork Council reports
that finishing hog producers lost money in eight of the last nine years, ending
in 2017. Meanwhile, Maple Leaf’s profits in 2016 tripled in 2017, and the 49.9%
Japanese owned HyLife Foods expanded its Neepawa plant with taxpayer help. So,
expansion is profitable, but not for hog producers. And, what are the social,
environmental, water quality and public health costs of such expansion for
Manitobans? Do we want rural communities divided by the Pallister government’s
promotion of the hog industry with off-loading of the political fallout onto
municipal leaders, our neighbours?

What will happen to the role of
Conservation Districts as Watershed Planning Authorities and in encouraging
sustainable land use practices?

It is expected that Conservation Districts will be
facing a steeper uphill climb to preserve and attempt to repair damage done by
unfettered and minimally regulated hog industry expansion.

A request has
been made to Maple Leaf and HyLife Foods to support volunteer efforts to assist
in the development and implementation of citizen water quality monitoring of
phosphorus in ditches and creeks. To date, there has been no response.
Anyone interested in helping with this endeavour, or for more information and
assistance with taking action on Bill 19, please contact: